Tex Murphy: Overseer

The Good
The fifth in a row of Tex Murphy detective series, and can as well be taken as remake of the first one called "Mean Streets". However, as many of you think this is a remake of the game, it is not completely. What I wanna say is, that there is a story within a story, and ending definitely has nothing to do with "Mean Streets". As the game starts, and intro scene opens, we see a man on the run, but we don't get to see what happened exactly. Suddenly, we hear a video-phone call and Tex awakens, just to duck behind his bed as he sees Chelsee. For those of you who haven't seen any of two previous games, "Under a Killing Moon" nor "The Pandora Diretive", this is a mutant babe Tex has developed soft touch for. Well, they do look great together, in this game for sure :)

So, as Tex awakens, she asks him if he forgot about tonight's dinner. Duh, of course he's not, lol, only his alarm-clock doesn't work properly, hehe. Anyway, after some chit-chat, you come to her, and start telling her a story of your first case, probably for the same reason you had your dreams earlier today. So, we see Tex in his office, several years ago, while he was still rookie, nevertheless great adventurer and detective. Just as he thought it was a bad idea he tried his luck alone as PI, a tall femalish figurine showed up at his door. He opened his detective book, and check under PI rules, seeing the first one saying Don't Get Involved With Your Client, just to be sure he'll follow it. Well, anyway, a woman came with quite some deal, and since Tex was late to pay for a few years hiring rates, he accepted the case, but not completely at the beginning. The woman, Sylvia, wanted him to find her father, who's supposedly make suicide. Well, in that case she doesn't get a million refund, so it's really important for her that you find it out otherwise.

Well, don't wanna spoil the whole story to you, but it is intense, and there is quite a lot of actions, as well as some known and/or unknown puzzle thingy, with lots of weirdo characters. I must admit, Tex is rather imaginative character in a stakeout situations, hehe, he is indeed, or he would be here and telling us this story. Anyway, I'll rather concentrate on real story in this game, and not the inside one. We know that Tex is telling the story to make him look good, lol, and to brag a bit, but while he's telling that story to Chelsee Bando, he's not all the time with her in her apartment. First of all, they went out for a dinner, and barely found the parking spot. Anyway, as you approach more to the end of story, and you confront Michael York in yet another try to better the world, you finish your dinner with a Chelsee, and they kiss sooner or later. Well, now we have our famous detective in love, eh? Anyway, just as everything seem to be alright and what a nice and romantic dinner, Tex starts to be a bit shocky as he realizes someone has stolen his car. Well, about a ten mins after, some man comes along, and offers them a lift. Tex, of course, is experienced PI and says no, but Chelsee get him to come, so they end up flying with someone unknown. Now Tex remembered yet another PI rule from his book he just throw away saying Never Accept a Lift from a Stranger. Oh, if only he thought of that earlier. Anyway, just about same timed, a man says to Tex 'Look at the bright side. No matter how things bad are, they can always get worse.' and shoots both, Chelsee and him in a head.

well, I cannot even guess how Tex will make it out alive this tim (if he's not dead already), but this thing proves that "Overseer" is more then just a story-by remake. The music in this game is at the level, with a solid nice detective tunes as we heard in previous Tex Muphy games, and this time, we don't just get to see squares, but we can use the power of 3D graphic cards support as well. Also, I dunno if that's in every case, but you get the game on five CDs and one DVD, so you can play it with frequent disk changing, or in better graphic without lines. I personally never got my DVD to work properly, hehe. Yeah, I guess I had some lousy experiences with such games, and if you ask me, games shouldn't use DVD, ever! It just cannot be as fast as CD, I dunno why, but it can't.

What is important in this game, and why it's worthy of having, and for somewhat higher reason then just to complete the collection, is the story. I know we had the same story back in 1989 when we were playing "Mean Streets", but this gives us better feeling, and now we can experience already known areas with solid background of our own. I mean, remakes can be great in some things. And I doubt we had as much action in the original game. However, for those with nostalgy present, tehre is a part, later in the game, when you are in Gideon's manssion, and you find a playing machine with infinite action shoting from "Mean Streets". Yeah, you can now experience it under DirectX, hehe, but I can assure you, it's quite the same.

The Bad
There's not much to say from my side, as I love both, Tex Murphy series, and detective stories in general. One thing annoyed me, though, and that was I saw pink colors at many parts when using 3D acceleration. I dunno why, but I think I encountered that before, or at least it looked familiar. However, movies were okay, as they had no need for 3D acceleration. And when there's something like that, I didn't want to play the game just in squared mode, if you know what I mean :) Even with that, the game was great!

The Bottom Line
The fifth installment of Tex Murphy series, with somewhat old techniques used on graphic, but still fun to play, and watch all those movies piled on these five compact discs. It's not only a remake, it's more, and you should prepare to be even more impatient for the next game of Tex Murphy once you see the ending, the real one, not the story one ;) Hey, for those of you who haven't had a chance to see how Tex Murphy actually started with his PI work, this can be as well used as the first game to play... more or less.